Dirty Wicked Lust: A Stepbrother Romance (17 page)

He smirked at the sight, shaking his head.

“If you’re trying to cover yourself up,” he murmured, the gift momentarily forgotten. “Don’t bother.”

“Why?” I asked innocently, peering down at the way the shirt covered my body.

“Seeing the way that shirt hugs your body,” he murmured, licking his lips as if suddenly enticed. “Just makes me want to take it off and see what’s underneath.”

I snorted. “You’ve seen every inch of me by now,” I reminded him. “In every conceivable position.”

“Oh, but Heather,” he murmured, voice a low, guttural growl that made my stomach leap. “There’s always a new position.”

“Later,” I cooed, no plans for the day other than perfecting the art of makeup sex to expert level. “Now, what have you got there?”

“Just a token,” he said, blushing slightly, as if embarrassed. “Something, well…” Then, gently, he pressed the box into my hands without another word.

“What is it?” I asked, even as I tugged the bright red bow off. Other than his love and well, hundreds of multiple orgasms, Ryan had never given me anything. I wondered, now what it might be, half-excited at the prospect of the box’s contents, and half-afraid.

“Jesus,” he murmured, chuckling as he stood near a small breakfast table in a smaller breakfast nook, two placemats bearing two plates, each bearing… a powdered donut?

“What?” he said, noting the incredulous look on my face as I gazed at what passed for breakfast. “It was all I had in the house.”

I smirked and opened the box, revealing a shiny new key on a brand new chain. “I… I don’t understand,” I said, admiring it in the natural light that filled the small but tidy apartment, aided by the dozens of candles still flickering all over the place from last night’s love fest.

“It’s a key,” he said, nodding from the gift to the walls of the apartment itself. “To this place. To…
my
place.”

“
Your
place?” I asked, sitting up as the T-shirt caressed my naked body as if it was an extension of Ryan’s big hands. “I wasn’t sure if maybe you were borrowing it from a friend.”

He chuckled, peering around the small apartment. “Friend?” he huffed, revealing a snobbish side I’d never seen before. “Any friend of mine would have better taste than this.”

I snorted, having the same thoughts but keeping them to myself. “But… how?”

“I had some money saved up from the service,” he insisted, sinking onto one of the chairs at the breakfast table, his robe giving way to reveal more of his long, splendid, flawless body. “Not much, but enough to put a down payment on this place, plus first and last month’s rent so at least I’ve got a little cushion.”

“Okay,” I murmured, the key still clutched safely in my palm. “You’ve answered the ‘how’ you got this place, but I’m still wondering…
why
? I mean, I know it’s been a little weird at home lately, with us sneaking around and the parents none the wiser, but… did you want to get away from me so badly?”

“God no!” he insisted. “It, well…” He paused, as if not wanting to insult me further. “In a way, moving out had nothing to do with you, and… everything to do with you.”

I was impressed, but still curious. “So, what did it have to do with, exactly?”

He shrugged, as if still struggling to figure it all out himself. “After we went to your school the other day, I realized… it wasn’t for me. I’m not the student type. So I went to the local VA and a lady in the Veterans Affairs office helped me find a job.”

“Doing what?” I asked, sitting up at the sudden and unexpected news.

He shrugged. “A security guard for a local car dealership,” he said, avoiding my eyes as if he thought I’d judge him or something. “It’s not much, but it’s a start, right?”

I nodded, heart swelling with pride at the thought of Ryan—my Ryan— wearing a uniform and patrolling the mean, wild streets of a… local car dealership. I knew that no matter what job Ryan got as a civilian—security guard, movie theater usher, bag boy or bus boy—would be only the beginning of a long and illustrious career.

More than just sexy, I knew Ryan to be quick-witted, motivated, smart and loyal. Did he have his faults? Sure. Did he have his reasons for them? All of them? Yes, yes he did. But he overcame them all. Coming home hadn’t been easy for Ryan—that much was clear. Nor had reuniting with his father, or bonding with an entirely new family. Yet, here he was, his own place, a new job and offering me a key to the lock on the front door as a peace offering for hurting my feelings earlier in the week.

“I’m really proud of you, Ryan,” I said, clutching the key to my heart. “What… what made you do all this? Not just the apartment, but… the job, the independence, everything.”

“I realized that I couldn’t live without you, Heather,” he said, our eyes meeting across the small, quiet room as he lingered at the small dining room table. “That I couldn’t live with sneaking around to be with you, either. So I figured if I had a place of my own, and you had a key, well… we really
wouldn’t
be sneaking around anymore, would we?”

I nodded. “It has been hard going around behind Mom’s back,” I confessed. “I feel so sneaky, but I just can’t help it.”

“I thought I could,” he offered, shaking his head with resignation. “Really, I did. But the more I tried, the more I knew that was a lie. If I couldn’t stay away from you, and I couldn’t stand to lie to our parents, well… this seemed like the only viable solution.”

“So this is mine?” I asked, excitedly, holding the key aloft. “A key to your apartment?”

He nodded, shyly, as if the present was somehow unworthy. “I… I wanted you to have it because I want you to feel welcome here. Anytime, day or night.”

“Like… a safe place?” I murmured, imagining long, lingering evenings here, candles flickering, cheap beer in my hand, Ryan smirking at me from the other end of the couch, never too far away to kiss, tease, or touch.

“The safest,” he said. “I didn’t, it’s a little too soon to invite you to move in with me, but… eventually…”

“That would look a little suspicious just now,” I said, although the idea of being with Ryan night and day, in the same house, in the same bed, never lurking or creeping around was almost too good to pass up.

“I don’t want to take you away from your mother,” he said. “I don’t want to lie to my father, so… this felt like the next best thing, right?” When I nodded, he peered down at the key and then back to me. “So do you?” he asked. “Feel comfortable here, I mean? That… that’s really important to me.”

I blinked tears away, holding the key by its charming keychain—a single sterling silver rose—no doubt in honor of our one and only fight and how we’d just made up.

“I do, Ryan,” I murmured, rising to thank him. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt as comfortable anywhere else since moving to Chestnut.”

He chuckled, the emotions clearly too much for him. “If you feel so comfortable,” he laughed, finishing setting the small table in the breakfast nook. “Would you mind helping me out and grabbing the orange juice from the fridge?”

I slapped him playfully and began drifting down the hall toward the kitchen, his USMC shirt hanging down to my knees as I inhaled his sexy, musky cologne from the crew neck collar. There was a knock at the door, and halfway between it and the breakfast nook, I turned to glance at Ryan.

“Ugh,” he said, shaking his head. “I keep getting mail for the old tenant. Can you get it so they’ll go away and we can get back to… eating… each other? I mean…
together
! Together,
that’s
what I meant!”

I was still chuckling, bare and eager beneath Ryan’s shirt as I reached for the door. Swinging it open, I didn’t see the mailman delivering to the wrong address—but the last two people I ever expected to see at Ryan’s door. Safe place my ass! I thought, my jaw literally dropping open as I stood, half-naked in the doorway. We’d been safer trading hand jobs in my car!

“Mom? Jerry?” They stood there, not quite angry—but certainly…
sternly
. Faces frozen in place, lips thin and cutting straight lines across equally stoic faces. I stumbled backward, literally shocked by their appearance.

“Heather,” Mom hissed, peering down at my outfit—or lack thereof. I followed her eyes to see just how soft and supple and… clingy… Ryan’s shirt was as it stuck to my jaunty nipples and nestled on top of my hips. He wasn’t kidding when he said it hugged my body. I might as well have been naked!

“So this is what you two were getting up to behind our backs this whole time?” Jerry blustered, bustling past as Mom and I followed him. In my stunned silence, I tried to see the scene as they were seeing it—for the first time.

Wow. My face fell.

It was impossible to hide what had happened there—my state of dress or, should I say,
undress
, the flickering candles and breakfast table set for two, to say nothing of the pile of clothes still heaped beneath the besotted armrest of Ryan’s poor couch.

“Dad, no,” Ryan said, standing from his chair, hands outstretched as if to thwart an enemy attack. “It’s not… not what it looks like.”

“Mom,” I pressed, pausing just shy of reaching for her elbow. “We didn’t… we’re not…”

“Don’t lie, dear,” she said, turning to face me as we lingered near the kitchen. “It’s not worth it. Not if you and Ryan want to build something… special.”

Surprised by her word choice, I stood, heart pounding, as Ryan barked, “How the hell did you find out about this place, anyway?”

“Or us?” I barked, more interested in
that
answer than how Jerry had somehow tracked down Ryan’s new address.

“You used me as a reference for this dump,” his father reminded him. “When your landlord called me to check you out, I made sure to get the name of this shit heap.”

“Honey,” Mom interrupted, using a tone I’d heard a dozen times before, since moving to Chestnut, Tennessee—that of the placating new wife, trying to save her husband from going too far around the bend. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

As always, Jerry ignored her. “No, honey, I don’t!” he snapped, turning on her with nostrils flared and eyes wide.

She ignored the obvious warning signs, and to her credit, never flinched—though Ryan and I certainly did. “Well, on the way over here in the car we said we’d be diplomatic and reasonable. Do you think the language you’re using is either?”

“I sure as shit don’t,” he huffed, turning back to Ryan. “Do you think this is a time to be diplomatic and reasonable, son?”

Ryan, shrinking in his father’s presence, merely shook his head. “I’m still wondering what you’re doing here,” Ryan managed to stammer, his voice growing more confident with each syllable, even as his father stood menacingly before him.

“I’m trying to explain how we put the pieces together, son,” Jerry said, peering from my mother back to Ryan. “It started with the landlord, and at first I was proud of you. I thought to myself, ‘That Ryan, he’s adjusting back to civilian life after all.’ Didn’t I say that, dear?”

Mom answered with a hangdog expression as if she had no other choice. “Well, yes, Jerry, you did. But…”

“But then, as time went on,” he added, ignoring Mom altogether and peering from Ryan to me and back to his son again, “I started putting two and two together…”

His eyes bore into mine, smirking triumphantly as he said, “Like the way you two are always sharing stolen glances at the breakfast table, or that farce of you driving Ryan to school the other day.”

“We
did
go to school!” Ryan said.

“Honest, Jerry,” I exclaimed.

He rolled his eyes. “If so,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket, “then it’s a wonder you had time to leave these in Ryan’s room, Heather.”

I gasped—Jerry was holding a pair of my panties. Not just some innocent pair of cotton panties that might have gotten mixed in with Ryan’s in the wash, but a very racy—and very dental-floss sized—pair of thong panties. Though it seemed like ages since Ryan and I had actually hooked up at the house, I clearly remembered wearing the panties into Ryan’s room—but had forgotten all about leaving them behind.

God knows we hadn’t worn much clothes while Mom and Jerry were away, particularly those last few days when we were racing against time to fuck each other every minute we had before they returned. God knows what else I’d left behind in Ryan’s room or, for that matter, what he’d left in mine—

“Or these,” Mom said, holding up a pair of Ryan’s boxers as if reading my mind, “which we found in Heather’s bed.”

“How did you…?” gasped Ryan, face red with surprise and horror.

“Mother!” I gasped, interrupting him. “Give me those.”

“Which ones?” Jerry mused, tossing my panties on the pile at the foot of the couch where, to my horror, I noticed the stack of our clothes, drawn off hastily the night before.

“Heather,” Mom said, following suit with a quick toss of Ryan’s boxer shorts onto the pile. “I found Ryan’s boxers while cleaning your room the other day.”

“Mom,” I fumed. “I’m nineteen years old. Why are you still cleaning up my room?” Jerry snorted, huffing as if the answer was obvious. I couldn’t exactly blame him. I mean, sure, I wasn’t exactly the neatnik he was.

“Well, dear,” she explained. “I certainly didn’t want to, but… it was just so messy. And you know how I am about clean sheets…”

Oh God! The sheets!

Back home in Miami we’d done laundry twice a week, once to include her sheets and another to include mine. Here, in Chestnut, life had seemed to take a backseat to housework—for both of us.

Mom was too busy keeping up with a 4500-square foot house to worry about my room, and well, I was too busy being distracted by my sexy stepbrother. So, sure, I
could
have somehow missed a pair of Ryan’s boxer shorts buried in my twisted sheets for over a week? I suppose so. I mean, it had been a while since I’d washed them. But… still.

The room had grown silent as I raced to put two and two together. Ryan and his father peered at us, Mom seeming to wait for a response as well. “Well…” I struggled to form one. “Well, if you were wondering what Ryan’s… you know what’s… were doing in my bed, why didn’t you just say something to me?”